


Reunited (and it feels so good)

by SpiralOfShame



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Runaan is secretly a hopeless romantic, fine i'll do it myself, rayla is only mentioned, reunited and now we don't know how to kiss, there are not enough reunited fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22593760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiralOfShame/pseuds/SpiralOfShame
Summary: Ethari knows he didn't make a single mistake when he made Runaan's lotus.So why is it floating again? He's dead. Isn't he?
Relationships: Ethari/Runaan (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 224





	Reunited (and it feels so good)

Ethari hadn’t left the pool in… so long. Maybe days. He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t even sure if he had slept in all the time he had been there. 

If it was anyone else. Any other lotus. He would have assumed he’d made a mistake; that he’d been careless, he’d missed some crucial part of the crafting process, he had been interrupted halfway through by blue-green eyes and almost-too-solemn expressions of love. Maybe he had put down his work just a minute too soon, swept away from his workshop by gentle kisses with the warning of impending departure. Maybe he had been reckless with his time, finishing a flower too quickly, spending his time instead with his husband, committing his form to memory. Sound. Touch. Smell. Sight. Taste. When his lotus sank he was sure he would never know those feelings again. 

But this was Runaan’s lotus. The last one he had made. The one he had closed up his shop for. The one he had scrapped twice for a slight chip. The one he had remelted for an imperfect bend. The one he had spent two days checking for imperfections. And he had done that twice, scrapping the first one when the ripples it created were slightly offbeat with Runaan’s heart. It was perfect. Literally perfect. 

When it sank, he was sure he had known it would. That some deep down part of him had known that it would be the last of a long line of gifts he gave his husband. A training sword when they met for good luck in his studies, a pair of horn bracers when he proposed promising to protect him, matching necklaces as a sign he was always there, and a perfect lotus for the end of a perfect life. 

Maybe he was being punished by the moon. Surely he had done something truly evil to incur that cruel a punishment. Ghosting Rayla had been wrong. He knew. But he had tried to convince the others to let her come back. He had tried everything and was met with no more than a “we’ll think about it”.

Maybe it was to teach him humility. But it had been perfect. He had used his most precise tools. He had used the strongest enchantments. He was sure it was perfect. 

And now it was back on the surface of the water. Ripples beating in time to his memory of Runaan’s heartbeat. 

“Ethari?” 

He didn’t look up. “Please leave me alone.”

“Ethari, you’ve been out here for days. We’re all starting to get worried about you.”

“I will be okay.” A lump rose in his throat, threatening to choke his words out of him, “I cannot see any imperfections, but he cannot be alive. The flower sank. I must have-” 

“You should get some rest.”

“Please leave me.”

A plate of moonberries was set down in his peripheral. He didn’t take his eyes off of the lotus as it slowly turned in the pool. “At least eat something. If he’s out there he’d want you to take care of yourself.”

The pool blurred in his vision and he reached out his hand for a berry. “I want to be alone with my foolish hope.”

“I understand.”

Runaan _would_ want him to eat. Eyes still on the lotus, he considered the berry in his hand and tossed it aside. Runaan was dead. This was just proof that he messed up and he was taking it as a sign. He had probably been dead for days when the lotus finally sank.

\----

He must have fallen asleep at some point. 

He woke to cheers. Or rather, he was woken to cheers. A hand shook his shoulder and he shot awake. _The lotus. Where is it?_

He looked towards the pool. Nothing floated on the surface. 

An anguished cry ripped its way out of his throat and he ripped his boots off and strode into the pool. He dug through the water, searching for the lotus that had caused all his pain. The ripples from Rayla’s lapped at his ankles like she was trying to comfort him from wherever she was.

He sunk to his knees. Splashing the water like a child having a tantrum. “Why must you take him from me twice!?!” his throat burned as he screamed out at the water “Have I done something wrong? Is this punishment for something?” 

His tears joined the water in the pool. It took the sound of someone getting in the water with him for him to realize he was outside. Probably causing a scene. 

A lotus was held out in his vision. Runaan’s lotus. 

He gasped and wrenched it out of the hands, almost throwing it onto the water. Where it floated. 

“He’s alive.” Ethari breathed out in relief. “He’s still alive. He must be. It was perfect. I made it perfect. He must be alive. My love my love my love my love…”

“Ethari, did you doubt my promise?” 

Everything froze. Ethari froze. Tears flowed down his face but he couldn’t move. _That voice._ The lotus was just foolish hope. Runaan was dead and he was a fool but _that is Runaan’s voice!_

“Please, This is a cruel trick. My heart cannot take hurt like this again.”

“Look up, my love. Your heart is safe. I kept it with me.”

Ethari shook his head and curled his hands into fists where they were resting on his knees. “I cannot look, my heart. When I look you’ll be gone.” his voice shook, “and I’ll be alone again.”

Gentle arms circled around him, one behind his back and one resting on the nape of his neck, and brought him across the water into a fierce hug. “I have returned your heart to you, my love. Now you must be careful with mine. That is one torture I could never bear.”

He buried his face in the junction between his shoulder and neck, afraid to place a kiss there as he had before because _this is a dream! I’m a lonely fool who dreams of his dead husband._ But he took a breath as the person holding him instructed. They smelled like moonberries but with an underlying human smell. _See. A cruel trick on a broken and lonely elf._

Pushing his heart back from where it was leaping at his throat, Ethari pulled out of the embrace, ready to bid his fragile heart goodbye for the final time. 

In the second before everything went blurry, he saw his husband. His form was beaten and his face held pain like no other. Pain that brought him as closer to death than the lotus’ could understand. But his eyes shone. He was wearing a jacket that Ethari didn’t recognize and he realized that was where the human smell was coming from. 

Someone screamed. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was Runaan. All he knew was that he was dragging Runaan in for what had to be their worst kiss yet. Even worse than their first kiss where it was too hard and too soft and too insecure and too daring. It was less a kiss and more Ethari sobbing into his mouth until Runaan pulled away and wiped the tears from his eyes. He cupped his face and slotted their lips together and after what must have been centuries Ethari tasted him again. He tasted like moonberries. 

“Don’t leave me again.”

**Author's Note:**

> And neither of them realized the large crowd of elves who ship Ruthari all screaming and crying and shouting something that sounds like OTP! OTP! OTP!
> 
> Also please comment. I accept any and all words.


End file.
